Strike-hit Lufthansa slashes 22 April schedule

Lufthansa has cancelled the majority of its flights on 22 April due to walkouts by ground staff at the airline as well as its catering, maintenance, and IT subsidiaries.

Nearly all domestic and European flights have been cancelled as the German service industry union Verdi has called staff to go on strike throughout the day at the carrier's main hubs in Frankfurt and Munich, as well as secondary airports in Düsseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, Hannover and Stuttgart.

The airports of Berlin and Nuremberg will also be affected, although the industrial action in the capital is due to be finished by 14:30, while services in Nuremberg should only be down during the morning.

Lufthansa expects to operate merely around 20 of the approximately 1,650 short-haul flights that would usually be conducted per day.

The majority of long-haul flights will also be affected. All but six of the 50 planned intercontinental services from Frankfurt will not take off, says Lufthansa.

The carrier expects to operate three of Munich's usual 17 long-haul flights.

But all three planned intercontinental flights from Düsseldorf should be able to depart, the carrier says.

Verdi called he warning strikes after it failed to reach an agreement with Lufthansa for around 33,000 employees at the airline, Lufthansa Technik, catering operation LSG, and Lufthansa Systems.

The union aims to increase wages by 5.2% and achieve job-security commitments, as Lufthansa plans to close its headquarters in Cologne and administrative facilities in Hamburg while making cuts at other locations across Germany.

Verdi says that up to 2,000 jobs are at risk. It adds that the airline's management has thus far offered wage increases between 0.4% and 0.6%.

Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary Germanwings says that the strike should not have any "noteworthy" effect on its flights.

Now that Etihad Airways has elected to stop funding Air Berlin, forcing the German carrier to file for assembly, a central question is which parts of the business can continue to operate in the long term.